The Labour Party on Sunday warned the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Nenadi Usman-led caretaker committee against any attempt to forcibly take over its national secretariat.
Raising the alarm in a statement in Abuja on Sunday, National Secretary of the party, Umar Farouk Ibrahim alleged that NLC plans to break into their offices to cart away sensitive documents and vandalise properties belonging to the party as they did in the past.
He said: ‘We view this (planned) action as irresponsible and evidence of desperation by the NLC. The laws of the Labour Union forbid them from partisan politics, which they did on different occasions in the past when they mobilised miscreants to desecrate the party headquarters and vandalise the properties.
‘It must be noted that the judgement of the Supreme Court delivered on April 5 is very clear and unambiguous. The judgment simply mandates that political parties to always resolve their crisis using internal mechanisms. There is nowhere in the judgement that gave NLC or the caretaker committee to take over the leadership of the Labour Party’.
The LP scribe warned that any attempt to force out the current party leadership would be resisted.
‘There is a leadership in place in the Labour Party, and Julius Abure, who was validly elected at a convention held in March 2024, still remains the National Chairman of the Labour Party. Any attempt to forcefully usurp the present leadership will be resisted.
‘We are by this statement calling on the attention of the security agencies including the Police, and the DSS amongst others to ensure that any activity that is capable of breaching the peace of the FCT must be nipped in the bud and that the masterminds, no matter how high they might be, are apprehended and made to face the full wrath of the law’, he stated.
Efforts to get the reaction of the Acting National Chairman of the NLC Political Commission, Prof Theophilus Ndubuaku, were unsuccessful.
The union leader sent a text message that he was in a meeting.
Meanwhile, the spokesman for the Usman-led caretaker committee, Tony Akeni expressed surprise when asked if they planned to truly invade the secretariat.
While dismissing the allegation, Akeni said it was a case of the guilty taking to his heels even when no one was chasing after him.
He said: ‘The allegation is of a criminal nature. But as [novelist] James Hadley Chase says, the guilty are afraid. And they flee when no man is pursuing them. Perhaps they are acting reverse psychology on what they would have done if they were in our position.
‘These people are intentionally criminal in mind and nature. Let us get this thing straight. If you are an illegal tenant in an apartment and you have exhausted your stay, legally and otherwise. Even the Supreme Court has ruled that Abure is not in any position to put himself as the national chairman of the Labour Party based on that veŕidct.
‘If they are wise and law-abiding, after the judgment, what they should have done is to put their luggage together and hand over the key to the caretaker committee chairman, Nenadi Usman. But if they refuse, of course, we have no option but to flush them and take over our possession. But it will be done lawfully’.
It was reported on Friday that in a unanimous judgment, a five-member panel of the Supreme Court set aside the decision of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which earlier recognised Abure’s leadership.
The apex court, in its decision, emphasised that matters relating to party leadership are internal affairs, over which the judiciary has no jurisdiction.
Furthermore, the court also observed that, based on the submissions before it, Abure’s tenure had already expired.
Consequently, it dismissed the cross-appeal filed by the Abure faction of the Labour Party.
While the media was awash with news that Abure has been sacked by the apex court, Ifoh hailed the judgment, clarifying that it validated their earlier position that political matters are strictly internal affairs of the party.
Since then, the absence and the continued silence of Abure have worried many people about his whereabouts.
However, a member of his NWC who craved anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the matter clarified at the press conference on Friday that he was mourning his father-in-law.
